2015 High School Football Tour – Stop #57: Tupelo

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TUPELO, Miss. (WCBI) — An 8-4 season by most standards is tremendously successful.

But the standards set by Tupelo in 2013 left the Golden Wave aspiring for more last year.

Head coach Trent Hammond went into his second year with the hopes of making it back to play for a State Title, and those hopes remain this year.

With the loss of big time stars Jarvis Wilson, Justin Clifton and Alex Norwood, Hammond believes his team this year is a true team that’s ready to play for more.

“This team is made up of great workers,” Hammond said. “There aren’t any super stars or Clarion Ledger Dandy Dozens. There are 80 kids that came every single day we opened up for workouts this summer. There’s kind of a blue collar attitude to this team to just get it done. They’re really buying in to the big we, little me philosophy.”

ThemBlankets were a streaky team a season ago, winning their first five right out of the gates.

After that run of form, Tupelo lost three in a row then won three straight before falling in the first round of the playoffs.

Injuries became a big problem for the Golden Wave last year, but Tupelo is using last season as momentum to push themselves for this year.

“We’re trying to teach the way these kids fought through it and got better and got into position to be a playoff team last year,” coach Hammond said. “I think that’s the one thing we take and try to build off of is that attitude of next man up, let’s take the job and go get it. With a team full of blue collar kids I think that’s paying off. ”

There’s plenty of talent and speedy skill players ready to prove themselves this year at Tupelo.

The Wave enter this season with arguably the most experienced quarterback in the state in Daniel Bristow back for his final go around.

Having that type of signal caller returning is huge, but Tupelo will be successful if:

“If we can eliminate turnovers and play good defense and keep everybody healthy,” Hammond said.

And it’s that kind of simple philosophy that coach Hammond hopes will lead the Golden Wave to bigger and better things in 2015.

Tupelo will begin the season this Friday on the road at Clarksdale.